The last time west Cork fisherman Damien Turner filled the fuel tank on his 24m (79ft) seiner Róise Catríona in Castletownbere his bill went into five figures.
“I’ve been fishing more than 30 years and I’ve had this boat for 20 years, but I’ve never seen anything like that. It’s the first time it has cost more than €10,000 to fuel the boat.
“If it goes any higher then the viability of the business is going to become a real issue,” says Turner.
The Róise Catríona is one of only about a dozen seiners operating from Irish ports, a specialist trawler that slowly pulls a floating seine net behind collecting live whitefish.